Senate appeals to break up relations with Rosoboronexport are ‘election rhetoric’ – State Duma

March 13, 2012, 21:57 UTC+3The State Duma has called ‘election rhetoric’ the Senate appeals to the U.S. Defense Department to break up relations with Rosoboronexport

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MOSCOW, March 13 (Itar-Tass) —— The State Duma has called ‘election rhetoric’ the Senate appeals to the U.S. Defense Department to break up relations with Rosoboronexport and expressed hope for preservation of the vector towards ‘pragmatic warming’ in Russia-U.S. relations.

“Relations between Rosoboronexport and the U.S. Department of State have always been a bit tense. Rosoboronexport was even put under sanctions but our overseas friends thought better and lifted the sanctions some time later,” State Duma Industry Committee First Deputy Chairman Vladimir Gutenev said.

In his opinion, the largest arms seller in Russia has become a target of ‘election rhetoric’. “Certain statements are targeted at the domestic audience and derive from the election cycle,” he said.

“Economic and political expediency remains the priority of Russia-U.S. trade,” he said.

A group of U.S. senators demanded from the Pentagon to break up business relations with Rosoboronexport due to the latter’s delivery of weapons to Syria. They sent the letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and expressed their serious concern over the ongoing relations between the Defense Department and the Russian company, which, they claimed, continued to supply the Syrian government with instruments of massive and systematic attacks on the Syrian people.

The senators offered the secretary to put pressure on Russia and Russian organizations so that they stopped supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad.